ELA MCAS -- CHECK!

State testing for my grade and for my subject is done.  English Language Arts is over.  Long composition = done.  Reading Comprehension = done.  Pressure = done.

I can see the end of the year.  Finish myths, read a few more stories, write some more, sink the Titanic and "save" only a few of my students, and read a novel.  It's a sprint to the finish line now.

The long comp question involves the students describing a sacrifice they made for someone.  This is the first time it has been an all-out fake question.  These kids are twelve.  Half of them don't even know what the word sacrifice means.  They come to my room after the test, telling me about the tales they wrote:

"I gave up my kidney!"

"I gave away all the chickens I raised!"

"I gave a plane ticket to an old lady!"

What?  You lost a kidney?  And you raise chickens?  And you helped an old lady?  Really?!

"No," they all answer almost in unison.  "We made it up!"

Oy.  Crap.  Damnit. This can never end well.

I shake my head and remind them about the boy who wrote that his favorite family pastime was to bungee jump in the Grand Canyon.  "Didn't that end badly for him?" I say. 

Some of the kids have written essays about Lent and the spirit of giving and sacrifice.  You know, like when they had to give up television or hand over the XBox.

Ack.  My head hurts just thinking about it.

But the more they tell me, the more they string it all together like vignettes.  As they recount what they wrote, I realize they're telling some convoluted but quite plausible stories with beginnings and middles and ends. 

Hmmmmm, narratives.... NARRATIVES!

And that's how we circle the Maypole in March.  The only difference is that we'll keep our chickens, we won't be helping Grandma get to Miami, and our kidneys, for the most part, are still intact.